The picture above says it all. One exhausted, worn out man taking a break in front of his fan with holes and paint on his shirt and pants! He didn’t get to do too much of this but it was nice when he did! This post covers our last two weeks so it may turn out to be a long one. We haven’t visited any interesting locations except inside and outside our sticks and bricks house but hope to be heading out west where we’ve planned many wonderful stops and will, of course, be sharing them with ya’ll!
Our days the last two weeks have been full from sun up till after sun down. No more sleeping late for us for a while, though we’ve been so exhausted that we fall into bed as soon as we’re finished for the day and sleep soundly until the alarm goes off! Our renters have moved out and we had a long list of work needed to get the house ready to put on the market.
Day after day was spent cleaning, painting, repairing, weeding and dozens of other jobs. We cleaned all the kitchen cabinet fronts and the master vanity which is a beautiful piece of wood furniture with many many crevices and ornate woodwork and a marble top. I used six different chemicals or blends of homemade chemicals to clean glass work (glass bath doors, vessel sink and waterfall faucet, ceramic cook top). Just a little note here when you mix baking soda and vinegar it acts like it wants to blow up which was rather frightening since I was in the house alone at the time. That did stop and after adding more baking soda it made a nice paste to scrub with. Then there was scrubbing walls (I went through 21 magic erasers – my new favorite cleaning tool), painting walls, baseboards, banisters, stairs. Roy painted a lot of this including the trim on the two dormers on the roof (we call them dog houses!). Then there was lots of wood floor revitalizing, pressure washing, repairing some things, buying lots of things, planting new plants, transplanting old ones, and mulching what we could.
Painting the dormer trim, see pictures below, involved Roy climbing on the metal roof after attaching a bolt to the floor inside the second floor of the house attached to a rope going out the window and tied around his waist. Because there are two windows he had to attach the bolt and rope for one, unattach it when he was finished, take it to the other room, attach and reattach that one, Reaching the top of the trim involved putting a step ladder on the roof, me going inside to the second floor and holding onto the ladder through the windows hoping I wasn’t going to let it slip and see my husband tumble down the roof. Even if he was attached to the rope who know how he would fall!
Weeds were pulled from the gardens every day by the bushel full. At the end of the two weeks new weeds had already dared to grow back in some of the first gardens I weeded. This Louisiana rain sure does grow some strong weeds! I have scratches, bug bites and I think poison ivy on 
every inch of my hands, arms, legs and feet. I usually post pictures of most everything but you would not want to see pictures of my skin right now! I think it looks like leprosy, Madisyn says it looks like chicken pox.
We got an estimate from a professional painter for just the trim outside (not the dormers) and the walls inside. It was a very fair estimate and probably right in line with other painters but way way over what we can afford. Again God blessed us by putting this wonderful man who paints by day at Southeastern and has for years, into our lives. Roy saw him painting at the office and just mentioned he could use a man like him at the house. He said he’d stop by the next day and he did. From noon till about 7 that night and a couple of hours the next morning he painted all the trim ceilings, columns, and windows on the front and back and the green decking and shutters on the front porch.
What a tremendous burden that took off Roy and the amount he wanted was less than one-fourth of what the original estimate was and this guy did a perfect job! Roy painted the white trim on the sides of the house leading up to the second story peak which was very difficult but the rest added to that would have been too much.
Anyone in Hammond wanting this guys contact info please let us know. He was a pleasure to work with and I’d highly recommend him.
When I post cute little graphics about God’s blessings and what he can and will do it’s real, this is a perfect living example of God taking care of us because we accepted Him as our Lord and Savior and gave our lives to him. The first weekend I had chest pains from doing so much work, being 
under so much stress and not eating properly. Once I rested for a little bit that weekend I was better but the scope of what we were trying to accomplish was bigger than Roy, me, Chip or our finances could handle and he stepped in to ease that. What an amazing God we serve!
Since we sold our lawnmower we went in search of someone to cut our grass and found a wonderful man to do it and his first grass cutting and weed eating made everything look wonderful. Thanks Scott Tribble for being the wonderful Christian responsible man you are! He’ll cut the grass for us ever 10 days until we sell the house.
Roy’s working 10 hour days at the University now (temporarily doing his old job) so I had plenty of alone time working at the house. He was off for four days for the 4th of July holiday and took a day off work the following week so we could finish it all in fourteen days. Fourteen long, awful, draining, exhausting days.
It took 5 days of work (not full days) to pressure wash the house, garage and all our sidewalks and porches. Roy, our son Chip and I took turns with that wonderful project.
Chip helped in so many different ways and I truly believe without his help and God sending us the painter this project may have been more than Roy or my health could handle. It was fun having Chip around and seeing him take such pride in the work he was doing. From digging up azaleas and transplanting them for me, to hauling off piles and piles of branches, pressure washing the whole garage and carport, and more things I can’t remember, his help was a blessing! One of the best things Chip did for us was to make sure we had lunch every day and wonderful Gatorade to keep us well nourished. 
We finished the last item on our seemingly never ending list a couple of days ago, Roy’s been working every day at Southeastern and I’m recovering while trying to make some headway on cleaning the RV which got severely neglected for two weeks!
The MLS internet listing pictures turned out beautiful. I’m so thankful they used a professional photographer because she captured the house’s features in a beautiful way! Thanks to Kelly (photographer), Tiffany and Jamie (our realtors) for doing such a wonderful job! Check out the pictures at http://www.kw.com/homes-for-sale/70401/LA/Hammond/11337-WARDLINE-Rd/3yd-KW-8_998527.html
This is our address on Wardline Road. I’ve always loved these tiles and wanted this picture to remember this neat little momento of our time living in this lovely home!
We just got word that they are showing the house at 1 pm today! Wonderful Scott came by to cut the grass just in time for him to finish before they get here. Do you see it? God’s timing is always perfect.
Here’s praying everyone has a restful, peaceful, recuperative weekend. It’s forecasted to rain here all weekend so we’re going to hunker down and watch movies as much as possible. If these folks don’t buy the house we’ll let you know when it does sell which will mean we’ll be preparing to move out west! We might just have to buy us a couple of cowboy hats for the journey!
BECAUSE HE LIVES 